


Alone

by hergan416



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Excessive Drinking, Hangover, Hip Hop, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Songfic, Violence, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 02:57:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13672830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hergan416/pseuds/hergan416
Summary: Set post canon but pre-DSOD. Kaiba is a bit of a mess, now that Atem is gone.





	Alone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [prettiugli](https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettiugli/gifts).



> This is a songfic in that there are lyrics laced through the work as part of the background scenery that Kaiba finds himself in. It is also a songfic in that I am thinking of a song as the basis of the work, even though that song is not explicitly referenced, except in the title. All songs' credits listed in the end notes. I very obviously didn't write anything but the prose between lyrics.

All Kaiba wanted was to shrink away from the music, the noise and the crowd. He didn’t want to play this part anymore, but he had to, for Mokuba’s sake. Mokuba was all that was left.

A crunching sounded from his left side, and he looked, realizing he’d accidentally crushed the can of beer in his hand in his rage. How **DARE** he be left alone after all of that. He was just fine on his own, and then the Pharaoh, no _Atem_ , interrupted **_everything_ ** . Every piece of this company he had willed under his control, every motivation, every singular shard of his heart that he had needed to piece back together-- and then he up and **_LEFT_ ** without even so much as a goodbye.

It was a mistake to drink at this function. He stood, depositing the empty can in the trash before taking a seat near the bar, where hopefully no shareholders would find him.

He _would_ have his revenge.

A decently foreboding sound erupted from the sound system as the next song began. It, like all the others, used too much autotune, and Kaiba scrunched up his nose. What was the point of this?

_I'm good, I'm good, I'm great_   
_Know it's been a while, now I'm mixing up the drank_   
_I just need a girl who gon' really understand_   
_I just need a girl who gon' really understand_

Kaiba huffed, making his overgrown bangs fly up away from his face, gesturing for something harder than beer. The bartender immediately responded with a shot of whiskey, which Kaiba quickly downed.

_I'm good, I'm good, I'm great_   
_Know it's been a while, now I'm mixing up the drank_   
_I just need a girl who gon' really understand  
I just need a girl who gon' really understand_

_Like such a thing exists_ , he thought angrily as the song continued on, his shot glass immediately refilled, and almost as quickly emptied.

_And I've seen her get richer in the pole_   
_I've seen her, I knew she had to know_   
_I've seen her take down that tequila  
Down by the liter, I knew I had to meet her_

Kaiba tuned the music out. What utter nonsense. Some pole dancer, understand? What was he listening to this crap for?

_Woke up by a girl, I don't even know her name_   
_Woke up by a girl, I don't even know her name  
(Woke up, woke up by a girl, I don't even know her name)_

With great effort, he shoved the song from his mind. There was no point. All he wanted, all he strived for had left this planet without looking back. The glass was refilled, and he was downing it in almost the same move.

_Paranoid (Paranoid)_   
_Paranoid (P-paranoid)_   
_Paranoid (P-paranoid)  
But I see something in you (you're paranoid)_

_I’m NOT!_ he insisted, thinking to himself. _I’m not paranoid or looking for some person to_ **_understand_ ** _of all damn things_ . He ground his hand into the counter and swallowed another shot,  colors from the dance floor blurred in front of him as he realized he had downed more shots than he’d been keeping track of in the course of the last four minutes or so. _No point_ , he thought, gesturing for the bottle.

A new song began. There was very little musical introduction, and the music itself was almost as aggressive as Seto himself felt.

_Said little bitch, you can't fuck with me_   
_If you wanted to_   
_These expensive, these is red bottoms_   
_These is bloody shoes_   
_Hit the store, I can get 'em both_   
_I don't wanna choose_   
_And I'm quick, cut a nigga hustle  
Don't get comfortable_

He felt himself mellowing into the music, this was it. This was who he was. A rich bastard. A very drunk, rich bastard.

_Look, I don't dance now_   
_I make money moves_   
_Say I don't gotta dance  
I make money move_

_No fuck_ , he thought, _this is more like it._ He felt himself bobbing to the beat. He didn’t even bother with the pretense of a shot glass by now.

_If I see you and I don't speak_   
_That means I don't fuck with you_   
_I'm a boss, you a worker bitch  
I make bloody moves_

The song continued along the same lines. He didn’t catch all the words, but he could feel himself coming back to himself. The pleasant buzz, the empowering lyrics. God, he was king. Atem be damned.

_You in the club just to party_   
_I'm there, I get paid a fee_   
_I be in and out them banks so much_   
_I know they're tired of me_   
_Honestly, don't give a fuck  
'Bout who ain't fond of me_

_Yes_. He just needed the club to keep up with this and… Who was in front of him now?

_If you a pussy you get popped_   
_You a groupie, you a opp_   
_Bet you come around my way  
You can't hang around my block_

Who was interrupting his alcohol intake?

_And I just checked my accounts_   
_Turns out, I'm rich, I'm rich, I'm rich_   
_I put my hand above my hip  
I bet, you dip, he dip, she dip_

His eyes blurred and he couldn’t see a face, just a suit, graying hair… why was he being shuffled out of there?

_I go to dinner and steak_   
_Only the real can relate_   
_I used to live in the P's  
Now it's a crib with a gate_

Why weren’t his feet working?

_Say I don't gotta dance_   
_I make money move_   
_If I see you and I don't speak_   
_That means I don't fuck with you_   
_I'm a boss, you a worker bitch  
I make bloody moves_

He felt himself falling over, the ground closing in on his face. A last verse echoed in his mind before it all fell to black.

 _Look_ (was that cheering he could hear?)  
_If you had_  
 _One shot_  
 _Or one opportunity_  
 _To seize everything you ever wanted_  
_In one moment_ (definitely cheering)  
_Would you capture  
Or just let it slip?_

He didn’t even have a chance to wonder when the artist had changed.

* * *

 

“Come, Kaiba Seto,” the voice commanded. His feet carried him down a brick path, flanked by sandy-shaded brick walls, so familiar despite the fact he could have sworn he’d never seen the building before.

He found himself stopping in front of a massive doorway covered in a linen. He pushed the linen aside, not waiting for a voice. A massive bed with intricately carved legs took up most of the space in the room. Kaiba was about to turn away when he saw his goal in the center of the bed, spiky hair poking out of the thin blanket, gold adornments set aside on a table while their owner rested.

The face was tanner than he remembered, but the angle of the face and the eyes were the same, if more delicate. It seemed the Pharaoh accented his looks with some sort of make up.

“Atem,” he spoke, every ounce of his authority on earth pouring into his voice. “It’s time to duel.”

“Then let’s duel,” the voice spoke back. The figure before him didn't move.

“Get up then, you slob,” he challenged, calling forth his duel disk.

“I can beat you in my sleep, why should I?” Atem’s voice chuckled.

“Pharaoh!” Kaiba shouted, all his anger over the past few months pouring into the word.

The linen covering the door opened and that damn Priest entered the room. The one he saw on that pillar, his supposed _destiny_. He was followed shortly by someone who looked remarkably like the dark magician. Kaiba sneered. “Are these the best you can do?”

“Prove your worth to me, Kaiba Seto.”

Had he not already done this dance a million times? Was he not the Pharaoh’s one true rival? An ungodly shout sounded from the chamber, frustration and anger and unacknowledged sorrow all piled into one noise. He slapped the monster down on the disk, barely taking note of the two priests activating their diadhanks.

“Suck on this, Pharaoh,” he called, the two occupants turning on him as he himself was enveloped into light, an attack resonating directly from him as he donned Kaibaman’s armor. Despite the general weak nature of the card, he found that he could release the power of Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon’s neutron blast attack, and so he did.

The two men fell into a heap, and the Pharaoh’s eyes opened. But instead of the dark violet that he was expecting, he was met by wild red.

“Come, share my bed with me, Kaiba Seto,” the voice commanded.

Kaiba turned the attack on the Pharaoh, not heeding the words. Sheets were ripped from the bed, the linen covering the door blew away, the window curtains tore into shreds and released outside the palace, and yet the Pharaoh remained untouched. He simply patted the cloth mattress next to him.

“Unleash your anger here, if you must.”

Kaiba crawled into bed, screaming bloody murder as he clawed at the Pharaoh, who submitted to him easily, knowing red eyes watching every move. He tore at Kaibaman’s gloves, removing them as he dug into Atem’s bare chest and throat with sharp nails, barely noticing as his helmet disappeared so he could stare at Atem’s face as he worked.

The fear he craved never appeared, just an absolute trust that drove him mad. His grip tightened on the Pharaoh’s throat, yet nothing changed, no bruises marred the perfect skin, his chest continued to rise and fall evenly, the expression never changed. He pushed soft adornments off the ridiculous pillow stand and began to bang Atem’s head against the hard surface, shaking him like a ragdoll. Yet no sign of pain or misuse crossed over him.

Kaiba couldn’t touch him. He was a God. A God from another world. Angry shouts soon turned to frustrated tears, turned to sobs of sorrow. Soon he was clutching the Pharaoh to his chest like a favorite toy, crying like he hadn’t cried since his father had died when he was ten.

He curled up next to the Pharaoh, finally losing his position of superiority, closing his eyes to cry. He didn’t know how long it lasted, but eventually he drifted into an uneasy sleep.

* * *

Pain. So much pain.

He peeled open his eyes and immediately shut them as the sunlight filtering through the half-closed curtains was too much for his brain to take. A wave of nausea hit him, and he retched, bile expelling onto the unoccupied side of the bed.

It _was_ unoccupied, right?

He opened his eyes, almost hoping he would see Atem there, still wrapped up in his arms, and now covered in vomit. The light blinded him almost as soon as he realized that opening his eyes again had been for naught. He was alone, his dreams be damned. He gagged at the light’s intensity, but couldn’t find any more contents of his stomach to release.

Slowly, he sat up, closing his eyes and feeling his way over to the curtains to pull them shut before taking his bearings. The bed was modern, as was the digital alarm clock whose red numbers spelled out the time: 11:04. He rubbed his forehead and found himself collapsing against the wall. Kaiba Hotel. He was in the penthouse suite of Kaiba Hotel.

He found he had very little energy, and that his head was still spinning despite the light canceling curtains, but that didn’t stop him from crawling to the bathroom to freshen up. He splashed water on his face and then poured a glass of water from the sink, rinsing out his mouth, not quite sure if he could hold the water down were he to actually swallow it.

This done, he crawled back out to the suite, collapsing on the couch to avoid the vomit-crusted bed, and fell back into another fit of restless sleep.

A knocking on the door woke him a few hours later, and he sat up, wondering first about why it was so dark and second about the smell. Glancing around the room, his previous morning’s activities came back to him, and he palmed his face tiredly, knowing he looked like shit.

He stood, happy to note that his sense of balance seemed to have returned, and began walking towards the door steadily. He locked the chain on the door before opening the door, forgetting momentarily about the peephole. Through the slight crack in the door, the image of his brother greeted him, and he quickly shut the door to undo the chain and open it the rest of the way.

“Mokuba,” he greeted, his voice sounding stale to his own ears.

His younger brother wrinkled his nose. “What’s that smell Seto?” he asked. “And why are you still wearing your pajamas? It’s already afternoon.”

Seto flushed. He didn’t want to explain this to his brother right now. “I’ll be fine,” he answered stiffly, his voice still sounding wrong to his ears. “I’m just hungover.”

Perhaps Mokuba had caught on that his cheeks were flushed a deep shade of pink, or he simply didn’t care, but he thankfully dropped the subject. “Oh.”

“Want to get some food?” Kaiba asked, finding that he felt surprisingly hungry, despite his earlier nausea.

Mokuba nodded brightly, and Kaiba smiled at him, ruffling his hair. “Wait out here, let me grab a pair of real clothes,” he offered. Mokuba wrinkled his nose, seeming to show his agreement based on the smell alone. Kaiba quickly changed, glad that he somehow had avoided getting anything on the change of clothes that he had brought for the morning.

As a last minute gesture, he put a “do not disturb” sign outside the room on the way out, deciding it best to wait until he left an appropriate tip for the maid service to come change the sheets.

Silently the pair walked down the hall and into the elevators. Mokuba seemed to have picked up on Seto’s reluctance to communicate and was shifting his weight from side to side restlessly.

Seto, for his part, was mostly praying he looked well enough put together to be seen in public. While he knew that reporters would be forcibly kept off premises, he couldn’t negate every person with a cell phone camera in this world. They arrived at the restaurant in the hotel lobby and were immediately ushered into a booth, despite the fact the lunchtime rush was still dying down.

Kaiba quietly ordered a bowl of miso soup, while Mokuba ordered a large meal for himself. Kaiba smiled at his brother’s appetite, gazing kindly on his younger brother.

Mokuba met his gaze and fidgeted a little, and Kaiba immediately grew nervous. “What is it?” he asked, wondering why his brother seemed so nervous all of a sudden.

“I kind of figured that you might be sick this morning, actually,” he mumbled. “It didn’t get out to the media, but the shareholders saw you drinking last night. I think that’s why Isono pulled you away from the bar,” Mokuba clarified.

Seto’s eyebrows raised. So that’s what had happened. His dream had been so intense he hadn’t really dwelled on why he woke up feeling like a trainwreck.

“Isono brought me there?” he confirmed, the question more a formality than anything. Despite not remembering much, he could vaguely remember drinking at the bar, and some song…

He rubbed his temples, looking around to make sure there were no cameras focused on them. “Work’s going to be hell on Monday, isn’t it?” he asked, sounding for a moment like the teenager he was.

Mokuba laughed in confirmation, but then grew serious. “Seto, why are you doing this to yourself?”

Seto just shrugged, unable to find the words to explain it to Mokuba.

Their food arrived and Seto fell silent, eating his soup without making eye contact with his younger brother. Despite the fact he was quickly devouring his meal, Mokuba didn’t stop watching Seto’s face, wondering how in the world he could bring him back this time.

 _You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow  
_ _This opportunity comes once in a lifetime, go._

**Author's Note:**

> Song One: Party Monster by The Weeknd   
> Song Two: Bodak Yellow by Cardi B  
> Song Three: Lose Yourself by Eminem   
> (Reprise at end is also Lose Yourself by Eminem)  
> Titular Song: Alone by I Prevail 
> 
> Youtube playlist containing all songs, as work continues, I may add more to this playlist.  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diW6jXhLE0E&list=PL13gjJaSg8HWEKQxqmbsp4ggLdTdi1Qk_


End file.
